Internet Engineering Task Force                                 J. BoundInternet-Draft                                                    NAv6TFExpires: October 8, 2005                                  S. Chakravorty                                                                K. Zhang                                                   The MITRE Corporation                                                           April 9, 2005                Proposal for a New Flow Label Definition                   draft-chakravorty-bcc-flowlabel-00Status of this Memo   This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions   of section 3 of RFC 3667.  By submitting this Internet-Draft, each   author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of   which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of   which he or she become aware will be disclosed, in accordance with   RFC 3668.   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that   other groups may also distribute working documents as   Internet-Drafts.   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.   This Internet-Draft will expire on October 8, 2005.Copyright Notice   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).Abstract   The IPv6 header includes a 20-bit Flow Label field.  RFC 3697, "IPv6   Flow Label Specification" [1] specified this field and minimum   requirements for using the field.  This document first identifies   several issues related to the current Flow Label specification; then   it discusses the limitations of the current specification and theBound, et al.           Expires October 8, 2005                 [Page 1]Internet-Draft    Proposal for a New Flow Label Definition    April 2005   need for extending the definition to accommodate emerging   applications and protocols; finally, a new Flow Label specification   is proposed that enables more effective usage of this field.Table of Contents   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3   2.  Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4   3.  Issues Concerning the Current Flow Label . . . . . . . . . . .  5   4.  New Flow Label Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7     4.1   Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9   5.  An Emerging Usage for the Flow Label Field . . . . . . . . . .  9   6.  Benefits of Flexible Label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10   7.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12   8.  Acknowlegements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13   9.  Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13   10.   References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13       Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14       Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 15Bound, et al.           Expires October 8, 2005                 [Page 2]Internet-Draft    Proposal for a New Flow Label Definition    April 20051.  Introduction   The IPv6 header includes a 20-bit Flow Label field.  RFC 3697 [1]   specified this field and the minimum requirements required for using   it.  This document identifies several issues related to the current   Flow Label specification, it also discusses the limitations of the   current specification and the need for expanding the definition to   accommodate emerging applications and protocols.  Additionally, a new   Flow Label definition is proposed that enables more effective use of   this field.   A Flow Label is defined in [1] to be 鎍 sequence of packets sent from   a particular source to a particular unicast, anycast, or multicast   destination that the source desires to label as a flow.